Steve Ellwanger

ORLANDO – What is considered a “safe” digital advertising environment for one brand might be unacceptable to another. For the latter, blacklisting entire websites or domains is one solution, but it doesn’t have to be that way. This is one of the concepts behind comScore’s rollout of its new Activation suite, an offering that enables […]

ORLANDO – Listening to Mastercard’s Raja Rajamannar, one wonders how marketers juggle the myriad the complexities and challenges that did not exist a mere decade ago. Even if they manage to master technology, brand safety, cause marketing and acquiring suitable talent, consumers don’t want to see their ads. So it’s a bit ironic that brands’ […]

ORLANDO – After its push for digital media transparency began to gain traction, Procter & Gamble began to realize that it needed to alter its creative game. Things like ad duration and frequency took on new importance. “It forced us to raise the bar even higher on ad creativity,” says P&G Chief Brand Officer Marc […]

ORLANDO – Earlier this year, Procter & Gamble cut $100 million from its digital advertising budget because of long-running concerns about the integrity of the media ecosystem. It was “kind of a pretty big move” that nonetheless paid off because the company still grew and met its objectives, according to Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard. […]

As it continues to combine the multitude of ad tech and content assets within AOL and Yahoo, a big focus of Oath going into 2018 will be to “own the mobile moment.” This is where parent Verizon will be a key ally. Oath Chief Revenue Officer John DeVine spends much of his time at events […]

COLOGNE – The shift in digital ad transactions in Sweden from insertion orders to programmatic deals has been “quite dramatic” and, as in other markets, transparency is a big challenge. “The publisher side is starting to get in sync with programmatic and understand the change that’s apparent for the moment,” says Peter Brodersen, Programmatic Manager […]

COLOGNE – With some 200 years of publishing heritage, Sweden’s largest local newspaper group solved digital advertising viewability two years ago and has since served only viewable ads. The reason was pretty simple, according to Fredrik Strauss, Head of Programmatic for MittMedia. “One of the developers said ‘Why do we even serve the ads no […]

To Time Inc., “transparency” is just another word for “validation.” And it’s nothing new to the publisher giant, which maintains a vast garden but eschews walls when it comes to sharing data with its partners. “I think when folks are talking about transparency what they’re really talking about is validation. They really want to know […]

GroupM is taking on the challenge of cross-screen audience targeting and standardized measurement by launching its own addressable TV company in the U.K. called Finecast. Following nine months of in-house testing, Finecast is up and running and spans multiple TV channels, pay-TV platforms, set-top boxes, video-on-demand services, over-the-top providers and game consoles. Jakob Nielsen, Managing […]

Stepping up its digital advertising game against Facebook and other platforms, NBCUniversal is rolling out a self-serve way to buy ads in some of its top shows. Target will be the first to bypass NBCU’s sales structure and place ads directly via an application programming interface to target audiences based on the retailer’s consumer data. […]

COLOGNE – Every once in a while, someone raises a caveat about being hyper sensitive about digital ad environments. In this case it’s Hearts & Science CEO Frances Ralston-Good, who says that while ad inventory should be clear the industry should be mindful of curtailing the benefits of programmatic. To be sure, the U.K.-based executive […]

COLOGNE – Could it be that the digital supply chain is finally growing up? It’s definitely maturing, with signs of consolidation, less innovation and indications that marketers’ calls for greater transparency are having an impact, according to Andrew Casale. If all of this were true, Casale would know. Back in 2003 he founded Casale Media […]

COLOGNE – About a year ago, customer management provider Salesforce acquired data management platform Krux Digital, to keep pace with competitors like Adobe and Oracle. With Krux providing new muscle to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, it has considerably upped the ante in leveraging brands’ first-party data. Salesforce Marketing Cloud Chief Strategy Officer Jon Suarez-Davis headed […]

COLOGNE – Can a hurricane top a presidential inauguration for grabbing eyeballs? At CNN the answer is a resounding yes. Breaking news also represents a “balancing test” in being able to monetize those eyeballs most effectively, as CNN Chief Product Officer Alex Wellen explains in this video interview with Beet.TV. “It looks like CNN is […]

COLOGNE – In the arms race that is automated or programmatic TV, there’s much realignment occurring among tech players. They know if they’re too slow on the drawing board an Amazon or Facebook or Google will swoop in and beat them to the launch pad. This is not lost on marketing analytics provider DataXu, which […]

COLOGNE – With the proliferation of video platforms and devices has come a persistent call for a common method of viewer measurement. One simple statistic shows why: NBC hit “This Is Us” is watched evenly on linear networks and digital platforms. “What we’re seeing in terms of the impact of that on viewership is really […]

COLOGNE – There’s a school of thought that says most online retailers cannot compete with the likes of Amazon and Alibaba. The folks at Criteo don’t think so, which is why they have architected “a kind of alternative universe” in which ecommerce companies not only survive but thrive. Despite “doom and gloom” sentiments about competing […]

COLOGNE – It’s taken a few years, but NBCUniversal is seeing audience buying becoming a mainstream choice for more advertisers across product and service categories. This comes three years after the media company began offering its Audience Targeting Platform during the Upfront negotiating period and after the second Upfront with its Audience Studio suite of […]

COLOGNE – While the present may seem like the heyday of skinny bundles, things are just getting started. Take Hulu’s recent partnering with Spotify for college students and the pairing of Netflix and T-Mobile. “We talk about bundling products and we talk about bundling video products together, but I think what’s interesting is the opportunity […]

COLOGNE – Could it be that Facebook finally considers itself to be a content company? The social media giant’s pledge at DMEXCO 2017 to institute new measures ensuring better brand safety for advertisers is a welcome example of a leadership position on the issue, according to MediaLink Vice Chairman Wenda Harris Millard. “Facebook is a […]